My Story...

After finishing Literate Lives, I think the case study or story that most resembles my own has yet to be written! However, the stories in chapter six, Inspiring Women, resemble the experience of my mother and aunt, who are both solely responsible for my own literacy(both technological and traditional). They were born a little later than Jane, Jena, and Janice, however they were born in a particularly socially delayed area of the U.S., so their cultural ecologies are similar. My mom was married and pregnant before she turned 19. She and her sister eventually  left repression-ville for California and although they found freedom, hippies, and women's rights upon arrival, they also found financial strife. Dire economic circumstances meant that even during the boom of personal computers, both women were not able to find a "gateway" to technological literacy until education came into play. The role education as an institution played in both my mom and aunt's computer literacy links directly to Jane, Jena, and Janice.
Like Jane, my mom was called upon to teach at the nursing school she was attending. This later led to a teaching job in the public school system (at that time California was handing out "emergency credentials", a whole other story!). In both positions she was not only introduced to computers, but ended up teaching "basic computer skills" to other students. I remember thinking my mom was so cool and hip when I got to visit her classroom/computer lab! Meanwhile my aunt had moved in with us to help raise my brother and I while my mom worked, stepdad attended nursing school, and she attended community college. The idea of second wave feminism presented in this chapter really interested me in that my stepdad was studying to become a nurse (one of the only males in the program), my mom was working full time to support the family so had to drop out of college, and my young aunt was living with us in order to attend college in California. Since my aunt was the only person home after school she wound up doing the "woman's work" of child raising, cooking, cleaning, etc. She and my mom were effectively supporting one male and two children...Simultaneously, all three of these young adults were becoming rapidly computer literate, and as my brother and I were attending elementary school in the height of the Clinton administration we too had frequent access to computers. Clearly, the influence of education, whether it be working for a school or attending school, allowed my family to develop a level of technical literacy that is truly a miracle considering our "cultural ecology". My aunt now has a Master's degree, and runs an online advising center for International students at Michigan State University. My mom continued her education after remarrying none other than a computer engineer, and has since had two more sons that have already begun designing robots and computer chips before second grade! I am now 25, so all of these struggles and accomplishments unfolded before me in my formative and impressionable years. I think that's why Jane, Jena, and Janice's stories resonated with me more than those of my own age group.